


Flowers

by Bayerick



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Blood, Gore, Implied Relationships, Violence, Wartime, poetic discussion of said gore, what kind of relationship exactly? we don't really know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 17:08:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20157115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bayerick/pseuds/Bayerick
Summary: She has never seen something so powerful in her life, absolute beauty, brutality incarnate. (Drabble involving Solf Kimblee and Helier Cross (OC).)





	Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, for all of you who somehow still follow me after my periods of inactivity, thank you. This has nothing to do with anything else I'm writing. I've had Helier (OC) as a character for many many years, have written assorted works for her, and then thrown all of them away for one reason or another. I'm proud to say she's actually one of the most fleshed out characters I've ever had. More info on her can be found here: https://toyhou.se/4440428.helier-cross  
More work featuring these two violent and amoral disasters will come soon, since my FMA muse is in full swing and my TES muse is...sadly not.

Curling smoke spills into the air from the initial blast, vibrant noise and thunder and bright light appearing where there was none mere seconds earlier. It would have seemed to be the end of the world had Helier not been aware of her surroundings, but she  _ is  _ aware, so aware and so alive that the marks carved onto her palms tingle with sympathetic energy. Gunpowder mixes with the scent of ozone and scorched earth, a usually foul smell, but at this moment it is perfume to her. She has never seen something so powerful in her life, absolute beauty, brutality incarnate.    
  
Helier grits her teeth as the earth trembles like a new lover beneath her feet, buildings across from where she stands cleaved in two by the force of the explosion. She does not fall but staggers, keeps her stance wide as the world around her bends and breaks. Another wave of thunderous destruction comes seconds after the first, toppling civilians and soldiers alike. Indiscriminately destroying all in its wake. Her eyes are wide, awe and intense focus battling for dominance. Structures fall and turn to dust in a matter of moments and she watches it all.    
  
The ground is covered in rubble; the sound of the survivors’ screams and sobs waft from the distance, the outer edges of the disaster zone. Finally, the crests of calamity waver and slow, the ground stops quaking enough for her to finally see the full extent of the damage. Craters have formed in the earth where huge chunks of debris fell from the buildings, blood and viscera splattering the sands where they struck the people below. People are still calling for their loved ones, screaming in the hopes that their respective gods will save them, but to no avail.   
  
The man who caused all this stands a few meters in front of her, fingers splayed wide in the air. She can still see sparks of crimson sputtering from his hands. Kimblee is silent, pensive, as if taking in a performance, and she knows better than to interrupt. 

A few moments pass. Helier walks tentatively forward, still wary of any lingering aftershocks, until she is at the edge of the roof with him. From where the two of them stand, she can see the line of craters starting from his feet, zig-zagging down the side of the building, fading into clouds of tan dust. 

Inadvertently, she clears her throat from the particulate in the air, and that seems to shake him from his reverie. Kimblee turns to her, a beatific smile on his face. She can’t say that she’s seen him this happy before. 

“Just look at it all,” he says, awed at his own prowess. He shakes his head and laughs. “Absolutely incredible. Don’t you think?” 

Helier nods in answer, even though she’s sure the question was rhetorical.  “I’ve never seen anything like it. You’ve… bypassed the law of equivalent exchange completely.” 

Kimblee hums in answer. “They said I’d be able to do things no alchemist alive could do with this stone.” The object in question glints in his palm in the stark sunlight like a shard of red glass.  She feels vaguely envious of it, but shoves the emotion down. Instead, she laughs out of disbelief, and it comes out as a cough. Damnable dust.

“I’ve never seen an alchemist alive  _ or  _ dead do  _ that _ . Ten cannons couldn’t do that.”

He chuckles not out of derision, but what seems to be genuine mirth. “After Ishval, when we all get back to Central, I’ll put in a request for the higher ups to change my title to Cannonball Alchemist.”

“More fitting than Red Lotus, I’d say, but a bit less poetic. Would I be correct in saying the poetry part matters more to you?”

“You’d be right, yes.” He pockets the stone, and stretches his arms and torso from his earlier effort. Kimblee’s eyes are again drawn to the carnage. 

There’s a moment where he seems to have fallen back into his trance, but then he taps her shoulder, pointing outwards to a clearing within the chaos. “But you see, that’s where the Red Lotus comes from.” 

Eyes following his finger, she sees blood on the horizon, like a sea spilling over a shore, ever expanding. His voice is nearer than it had been, but so quiet. She can feel his breath, even and soft on her neck.

“When my deconstruction comes into contact with bodies, for a brief moment, the body turns in, then outwards. Like taking in too much breath and having it explode out of you. The aftermath are these...blossoms of blood and skin.”

She can see so many gardens of red flowers on the sand, bloody anemones and lilies and lotuses springing from the destruction he caused. 

“I wish my alchemy was half as poetic as that,” she murmurs, a wistful note in her voice. “I’m the one ruining those gardens, plucking them up and all to use for my own gain.” She wrings her hands, running her fingers over the alchemical symbols scarred into her palms. Delicate markings carved and re-carved, all to mean blood to iron, iron to iron alloy, able to be shaped to her command. 

“What use is a flower if no one is there to pick it?” The saccharine words are spoken into her hair, and in the ensuing silence, his fingers trace the state alchemist’s insignia on her uniform. 

She can hear blood rushing in her ears, threatening to flow into her face, but she refuses to be shaken by whatever stunt he’s trying to pull. 

The moment is broken by her hand coming into direct, sharp contact with his shoulder. 

“Don’t mock me with those horrid maudlin words!” 

He laughs, sharp and wild, still high on his own power.

“You asked for poetry, I gave you poetry.” he rebukes, rubbing his shoulder in mock pain, dancing away from her reach. 

“Enough of you, you incorrigible ass. There’s work to be done.” she says, and hides a smile beneath a stern scowl.

“Of course, of course.” He straightens his uniform, smug, and leaves her with one last grin, before the two of them descend the rooftop, back towards the battlefield.


End file.
